Government not implementing Dementia group recommendations, Opposition insists in Parliament

Asked by Farrugia to reply as to whether the ten recommendations made to government by the Dementia Strategy Group would be implemented, Health minister Joe Cassar told Parliament that dementia was a condition that was increasing as time goes by. “Now we have the elderly helping the elderly,” he told the House.

Cassar said the Government was still looking at other public centres as well as the new SVPR wards which have to be dementia-friendly.

He explained how the Dementia strategy group had given a wide-ranging strategy for the next 20 years.

Asked by PN Parliamentary Assistant for Education Ministry Charlo Bonnici to state about how Malta compared with the rest of the EU, Cassar explained how Malta’s smallness was “an asset in this respect.

According to Cassar, there are “very few people who are not caught in the Maltese social network,

“The social network is very strong because there are relatives who are assisting their sick relatives,” Cassar told Parliament.

Farrugia retorted that the Health Minister had not replied on his original question on the implementation of the ten points recommended by the National Dementia Strategy Group.

Cassar replied that the Dementia Strategy Group had been a useful exercise, but it will not be implementing the points on their own.

On his part, Opposition leader Joseph Muscat asked why the residents of two localities had been asked to re-submit their POYC data after two years.

Cassar said that he had not been aware of those two specific cases, however it probably might have been that they might have re-sent for the medical data since “a lot of details change over time”